European countries vow billions in military support for Ukraine as US envoy meets Putin

European countries vow billions in military support for Ukraine as US envoy meets Putin
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Britain's Defense Secretary John Healey (L), Ukraine's Minister of Defense Rustem Umierov and Germany's Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (R) sign documents following a Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting in Brussels on April 11, 2025. (AFP)
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Updated 12 April 2025
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European countries vow billions in military support for Ukraine as US envoy meets Putin

European countries vow billions in military support for Ukraine as US envoy meets Putin
  • British Defense Secretary John Healey said that new pledges of military aid totaled over 21 billion euros ($24 billion)
  • Ukraine has endorsed a US ceasefire proposal, but Russia has effectively blocked it by imposing far-reaching conditions

BRUSSELS: European countries vowed Friday to sends billions of dollars in further funding to help Ukraine keep fighting Russia’s invasion, as a US envoy pursued peace efforts in a trip to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin amid growing questions about the Kremlin’s willingness to stop the more than three-year war.

Russian forces hold the advantage in Ukraine, with the war now in its fourth year. Ukraine has endorsed a US ceasefire proposal, but Russia has effectively blocked it by imposing far-reaching conditions. European governments have accused Putin of dragging his feet.

“Russia has to get moving” on the road to ending the war, US President Donald Trump posted on social media. He said the war is “terrible and senseless.”

In Russia, the Kremlin said Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff met with Putin in St. Petersburg. Witkoff, who has been pressing the Kremlin to accept a truce, initially met with Putin envoy Kirill Dmitriev, footage released by Russian media showed.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Witkoff during his visit to Russia was discussing efforts to end the war with Putin and other officials. “This is another step in the negotiating process toward a ceasefire and an ultimate peace deal,” she said.

Russian state news agency RIA Novosti said Witkoff’s meeting with Putin lasted 4 1/2 hours, and cited the Kremlin as saying that the two discussed “aspects” of ending the war, without providing any details.

After chairing a meeting of Ukraine’s Western backers in Brussels, British Defense Secretary John Healey said that new pledges of military aid totaled over 21 billion euros ($24 billion), “a record boost in military funding for Ukraine, and we are also surging that support to the frontline fight.”

Healey gave no breakdown of that figure, and Ukraine has in the past complained that some countries repeat old offers at such pledging conferences or fail to deliver real arms and ammunition worth the money they promise.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said last week that Ukraine’s backers have provided around $21 billion so far in the first three months of this year. European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Friday that more than $26 billion have been committed.

Ahead of the “contact group” meeting at NATO headquarters, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said a key issue was strengthening his country’s air defenses.

Standing alongside Healey at the end of it, Umerov described the meeting as “productive, effective and efficient,” and said that it produced “one of the largest” packages of assistance Ukraine has received. “We’re thankful to each nation that has provided this support,” he said.

Britain said that in a joint effort with Norway just over $580 million would be spent to provide hundreds of thousands of military drones, radar systems and anti-tank mines, as well as repair and maintenance contracts to keep Ukrainian armored vehicles on the battlefield.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has renewed his appeals for more Patriot systems since 20 people were killed a week ago, including nine children, when a Russian missile tore through apartment buildings and blasted a playground in his home town.

Zelensky joined Friday’s meeting by video link.

Russia holds off agreeing to ceasefire

The Russian delay in accepting Washington’s proposal has frustrated Trump and fueled doubts about whether Putin really wants to stop the fighting while his bigger army has momentum on the battlefield.

“Russia continues to use bilateral talks with the United States to delay negotiations about the war in Ukraine, suggesting that the Kremlin remains uninterested in serious peace negotiations to end the war,” the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, said in an assessment late Thursday.

Washington remains committed to securing a peace deal, even though four weeks have passed since it made its ceasefire proposals, State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said.

“It is a dynamic that will not be solved militarily. It is a meat grinder,” Bruce said Thursday about the war, adding that “nothing else can be discussed … until the shooting and the killing stops.”

Observers expect a new Russian offensive

Ukrainian officials and military analysts believe Russia is preparing to launch a fresh military offensive in coming weeks to ramp up pressure and strengthen the Kremlin’s hand in the negotiations.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that his country would provide Ukraine with four IRIS-T short- to medium-range systems with missiles, as well as 30 missiles for use on Patriot batteries. The Netherlands plans to supply a Hawkeye air defense system, an airborne early warning aircraft.

Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said that his country is monitoring the world armaments market and sees opportunities for Ukraine’s backers to buy more weapons and ammunition.

Pevkur said he believes Putin might try to reach some kind of settlement with Ukraine by May 9 — the day that Russia marks victory during World War II — making it even more vital to strengthen Kyiv’s position now.

“This is why we need to speed up the deliveries as quickly as we can,” he said.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was absent from the forum that the United States created and led for several years, although he spoke via video.

At the last contact group meeting in February, Hegseth warned Ukraine’s European backers that the US now has priorities elsewhere — in Asia and on America’s own borders — and that they would have to take care of their own security, and that of Ukraine, in future.


Russia main election monitor closes amid crackdown

Updated 1 sec ago
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Russia main election monitor closes amid crackdown

Russia main election monitor closes amid crackdown
MOSCOW: Russia’s main independent voting observer Golos, which monitored the country’s increasingly tightly-controlled elections for 25 years, announced its closure on Tuesday, two months after its co-chair was jailed.
Golos — which means “voice” in Russian — had for years meticulously recorded voting fraud across the huge country as elections under President Vladimir Putin’s long rule turned into a ritual with little real choice.
Putin faced no real competition at the last presidential election in 2024 and a domestic crackdown accompanying Moscow’s Ukraine offensive has made voicing different views dangerous.
“Justice, alas, does not always win — it must be fought for. And there is always the risk of losing. This is how it turned out this time,” Golos said in an online statement, adding: “Goodbye.”
The group’s co-chair Grigory Melkonyants, Russia’s most respected independent election observer, was sentenced to five years in prison in May as part of the Kremlin’s sweeping crackdown.
Golos said it had “no choice” but to end its activity after the sentencing as it put its participants “at risk.”
Melkonyants, 44, was found guilty of working with a European election monitoring association outlawed as an “undesirable organization” in Russia — which Golos has repeatedly denied.
Golos has described itself as an “all Russian social movement in defense of voters’ rights.”
It had observers across Russia’s regions and had for years published online reports and maps of violations during elections and had a hotline to report voting fraud.
It said Tuesday it had shut down its regional offices.
International observers have for years reported widespread voter intimidation, ballot stuffing and other election fraud in Russia.

Suspect in shooting of Slovakia’s populist leader Fico stands trial on terror charges

Suspect in shooting of Slovakia’s populist leader Fico stands trial on terror charges
Updated 15 min 47 sec ago
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Suspect in shooting of Slovakia’s populist leader Fico stands trial on terror charges

Suspect in shooting of Slovakia’s populist leader Fico stands trial on terror charges
  • Slovakia’s populist Prime Minister Robert Fico was shot in the abdomen and was transported to a hospital in nearby Banská Bystrica

BRATISLAVA: A man went on trial Tuesday over last year’s attempted assassination of Slovakia’s populist Prime Minister Robert Fico.

Juraj Cintula, appearing in court in the central city of Banská Bystrica, has been indicted on terror charges.

“Long live democracy, long live free culture,” Cintula shouted as he arrived at the Specialized Criminal Court.

The 72-year-old is accused of opening fire on Fico on May 15, 2024, as the prime minister greeted supporters following a government meeting in the town of Handlová, located 140 kilometers (85 miles) northeast of the capital.

Cintula was immediately arrested and was ordered by a court to remain behind bars. If convicted, he faces life imprisonment.

Fico was shot in the abdomen and was transported to a hospital in nearby Banská Bystrica. He underwent a five-hour surgery, followed by another two-hour surgery two days later. He has since recovered.

Cintula originally was charged with attempted murder. Prosecutors later dropped that charge and said they were instead pursuing the more serious charge of engaging in a terror attack, based on evidence the investigators obtained, but they gave no further details.

Government officials initially said that they believed it was a politically motivated attack committed by a “lone wolf,” but announced later that a third party might have been involved in “acting for the benefit of the perpetrator.”

Fico previously said he “had no reason to believe” that it was an attack by a lone deranged person and repeatedly blamed the liberal opposition and media for the assassination attempt.

Fico has long been a divisive figure in Slovakia and beyond. He returned to power for the fourth time after his leftist Smer, or Direction, party won the 2023 parliamentary election after campaigning on a pro-Russia and anti-American message.

His critics have charged that Slovakia under Fico has abandoned its pro-Western course and is following the direction of Hungary under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Thousands have repeatedly rallied in the capital and across Slovakia to protest Fico’s pro-Russian stance and other policies.


China says US is in ‘no position’ to point fingers over Tibet issues

China says US is in ‘no position’ to point fingers over Tibet issues
Updated 54 min 6 sec ago
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China says US is in ‘no position’ to point fingers over Tibet issues

China says US is in ‘no position’ to point fingers over Tibet issues
  • The Dalai Lama is accused of engaging in anti-China separatist activities

BEIJING: China’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday that the United States was in “no position” to point fingers at the country on Tibet-related issues, urging Washington to fully recognize the “sensitivity” of the issues.

Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning made the remarks when asked to comment on US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s statement on the Dalai Lama’s birthday.

Mao said at a regular press conference that the Dalai Lama “is a political exile who is engaged in anti-China separatist activities under the cloak of religion,” and has “no right” to represent the Tibetan people.


In Hiroshima, search for remains keeps war alive for lone volunteer

In Hiroshima, search for remains keeps war alive for lone volunteer
Updated 08 July 2025
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In Hiroshima, search for remains keeps war alive for lone volunteer

In Hiroshima, search for remains keeps war alive for lone volunteer
  • Volunteers still descend on Okinawa from all over Japan for excavations
  • While many remains were unearthed in the decades following the war, witness accounts suggested there were more burial grounds

NINOSHIMA: Dozens of times a year, Rebun Kayo takes a ferry to a small island across from the port of Hiroshima in search of the remains of those killed by the atomic bomb 80 years ago.

For the 47-year-old researcher, unearthing even the tiniest fragments on Ninoshima Island is a sobering reminder that the war is a reality that persists — buried, forgotten and unresolved.

“When we die, we are interred in places like temples or churches and bid farewell in a ceremony. That’s the dignified way of being sent off,” said Kayo, a researcher at Hiroshima University’s Center for Peace who spends his own time and money on the solo excavations.

After the United States dropped the atomic bomb over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, instantly killing about 78,000 people and injuring far more, Ninoshima, about 4 km (2.5 miles) from the hypocenter, became a field hospital. Within weeks, some 10,000 victims, both dead and alive, were ferried across the water. Many perished soon after, and when cremations could not keep up, people were buried in mass graves.

While many remains were unearthed in the decades following the war, witness accounts suggested there were more burial grounds. The son of a resident informed Kayo about one area on the island’s northwestern coast in 2014 and from there, he saved up funds and began digging four years later.

NO CLOSURE

In searing heat last weekend, Kayo cut through overgrown brush to return to the spot where he had left off three weeks before. After an hour and a half of digging, he carefully picked out two thumbnail-sized bone fragments from the dirt — additions to the roughly 100 he has unearthed so far.

Every discovery brings home to him the cruelty of war. The pain was never as raw as when Kayo found pieces of a young child’s jaw and tooth earlier this year, he said.

“That hit me really hard,” he said, his white, long-sleeve shirt soaked through with sweat. “That child was killed by the bomb, knowing nothing about the world ... I couldn’t come to terms with it for a while, and that feeling still lingers.”

One day, he plans to take all the fragments to a Buddhist temple, where they can be enshrined.

Kayo’s drive for repeating the gruelling task year after year is partly personal.

Born in Okinawa, where some of the bloodiest battles during World War Two were fought, Kayo himself has three relatives whose remains were never found.

Volunteers still descend on Okinawa from all over Japan for excavations, and because the poison ivy in the forests there is prohibitive for him, Kayo returns the favor on Ninoshima instead.

As long as traces of the dead keep turning up, the war’s proximity is palpable for Kayo.

“People today who don’t know about the war focus only on the recovery, and they move the conversation forward while forgetting about these people here,” he said.

“And in the end, you’ll have people saying, ‘even if you drop an atomic bomb, you can recover’ ... There will always be people who try to justify it in a way that suits them.”


Rescuers on horseback, with dogs search for Texas flood victims

Rescuers on horseback, with dogs search for Texas flood victims
Updated 08 July 2025
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Rescuers on horseback, with dogs search for Texas flood victims

Rescuers on horseback, with dogs search for Texas flood victims
  • About 30 volunteers on horseback joined mounted police from Austin to support rescue efforts in four towns along the Guadalupe River in Kerr County

HUNT: Volunteers on horseback and others with rescue dogs are combing riverbanks alongside authorities in central Texas, searching for victims of catastrophic floods that have killed more than 100 people.

Rescuers in inflatable motorboats also searched Monday for bodies near Camp Mystic, an all-girls summer camp, where 27 campers and counselors died after being swept away by floodwaters.

Another team collected the children’s belongings from flooded cabins marked by mud lines exceeding five feet (1.5 meters) high.

About 30 volunteers on horseback, many wearing cowboy hats, joined mounted police from Austin to support rescue efforts in four towns along the Guadalupe River in Kerr County.

Michael Duncan, 55, rode Ranger, his dark brown horse, along the river, supporting rescue efforts that have deployed hundreds of searchers along several miles of the waterway.

“Obviously (on horseback)... we can gain more ground. We can get to some areas where people can’t get to as easy,” Duncan told AFP.

The horses easily navigate the hilly terrain, undergrowth and debris left behind after the rain-swollen floodwaters receded.

Perched atop Ranger, Duncan said that the “height advantage” allowed him to scan across the mounds of debris.

Volunteers on foot also scoured the area, detecting foul odours from undergrowth that could indicate decomposing animals or human remains.

They dug through earth piled near trees, using pointed sticks to probe mounds for any signs of bodies.

During their search, they found children’s swimming goggles and a football.

Tom Olson, a rescue dog trainer, deployed his eight-year-old Belgian Malinois, Abby, to assist the search.

Olson, 55, compared the dog’s search abilities to a useful tool, “just like underwater sonar boats, drone, aircraft.”

“The dog will be able to rapidly find a potential victim... lowering the risk to the people that are out here actually trying to do the search and rescue,” he told AFP.

Olson said the work to recover victims’ bodies involved “a mental debt” and “emotional debt” but was necessary to bring “closure to the families that lost (people), as well as closure for the rescuers.”

Electric company crews also worked to restore power poles and cables destroyed by the floods as the Guadalupe River receded to its normal course.

Duncan, the mounted volunteer, said the searches filled him with “a lot of sadness” but added: “It’s also great to see how many people come out... and most everybody is doing this for free.

“That’s pretty inspiring to see.”